Letters to the Editor: August 29-September 3, 2009

No Freebies

You’re right, Mr. Eshman, the best things in life can’t remain free (“Free at Last?” Aug. 7).

Ergo, here is a check for another year of receiving The Jewish Journal in Santa Barbara every Wednesday, for “free.” I’ve lived here seven years, but the L.A. Jewish scene, as well as your thoughtful and often-provocative articles, are a staple of the week.

There is indeed a great Jewish community here in Santa Barbara, but no local Jewish Journal, and I’ve worried as well about all the freebies [Jewish institutions] dispense.

Frankly, I don’t think the Kiddush at the temple has to be more than a nice fresh piece of challah and a sip of wine. Where did the idea of a cold buffet get started (all right, maybe a cookie for the kids, young and old)? But bagels, herring and costly lox, not to mention fresh berries, Rainier cherries, cream cakes and three kinds of rugelach?

Let’s get thin and real. Let’s start putting our money where our mouths and eyes are, or else …

Josie Levy Martin
Santa Barbara

Kaplan on Health Care Debate

Marty Kaplan’s article, “The Marty Show” (Aug. 14), reflects the naïve thinking that is threatening to destroy our health. Like communism, the theory of national health is beautiful, but the practice has been disastrous.

I lived in Australia in the 1970s when National Health was introduced. Actually, the Aussie system is one of the better ones, because it retains the option of getting private insurance on top of the government insurance. You pay twice (once for the government and once for the private) but at least you can get your health. Most (if not all) the politicians subscribe to the private insurance as well.

Henry Kister
Corona del Mar

Marty Kaplan has never met a good conservative. We are all evil. Marty’s recent article demeans and belittles all leaders on the right. Such is the perspective when you view politics from way, way out in left field.

Your magazine is very obviously skewed left. I admire Rob Eshman’s writing skills but he also resides in left field.  I have no problem with you having a weekly article by Marty Kaplan. My problem is with the often-maligned word “diversity”. Not all Jews are liberal. Couldn’t you, in the spirit of fairness, have a column by someone on the right?

Ed Shevick
Woodland Hills

Columnist Marty Kaplan takes potshots at congressional demagogues, loony lobbyists, media blowhards, right-wing Republicans, et cetera who “demonize” health care reform at the expense of 46 million uninsured Americans.

I find it horrifying that the House Ways and Means Committee killed an amendment by Congressman Dean Heller (R-Nev.) to deny free health care to an estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., California taxpayers spend $10 billion a year (or $13 billion a year if you believe the latest report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform) on education, housing and medical care for illegal immigrants — and that’s just one state (see the map on the FAIR Web site, fairus.org).

President Barack Obama wants health care reform and “comprehensive immigration reform,” which is nothing more than amnesty on the installment plan.

Imagine the disastrous impact on the health care system if millions of newly minted citizens and their impoverished relatives (family reunification = chain migration) line up for public benefits and services.

Les Hammer
Los Angeles

Give Obama a Chance

I was disappointed in Cheryl Halpern’s opinionated dissection of President Obama’s speech made before the Arab community (“Palestinian Plight, Holocaust Are Not Analogous,” July 24). What can be accomplished by this repeated rhetoric? Her argument is specious because what happened thousands or 60 years ago is not germane to the world today. Ms. Halpern portrays a “link” as something ominous. I prefer to think of links as bridges, a way of bringing people together, finding a common ground.

The real and only humane argument is how to stop the killing of children and other innocent people, whether they are Arab, Palestinian or Jewish. And, if it takes a two-state solution to accomplish this, then that is where our energy should be focused.

Obama laid it right on the line during his campaign. Let’s not only give him a chance, but it is imperative to support him. Isn’t Judaism about tikkun olam … aren’t we supposed to try and repair the entire world?

Simona Klein
Santa Monica

Wise Spending?

Last week, The Journal printed an article stating that, due to the economic downturn, Jewish organizations that provide food, education and other services to the community are suffering financially (“Money Woes Doom Leadership Program,” Aug. 21).  On the very next page, there was a Community Brief about how the Bureau of Jewish Education hired two outside consulting firms, spent 18 months and who knows how many thousands of dollars for the purpose of changing their name to BJE (“BJE Changes Name to … BJE” Aug. 21). Is this our donation dollars at work!?

Daniel Iltis
Los Angeles

Jerusalem Needs No “Judaizing”

David N. Myers takes the side of illegal Arab squatters on Jewish-owned property in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and criticizes Israel’s Supreme Court for their decision, which was based on property documentation, to award the land to Jewish owners as casting a “dark pall over the Israeli legal system” (“Jerusalem 2009: A Tale of Two Cities,” Aug. 14).

This is not a case of insensitivity to Arab residents or Arabs in general; it is a case of determining ownership, something that is a sometimes painful but necessary task of law courts. History and documents, not nationality or religion, determined the result.

In any other case or country, one can be sure that Myers would call for judicial review of documents and the upholding of the law. Here, he doesn’t, because he doesn’t like the results. Instead, he wants the courts to ignore documentation and important matters like actual ownership so it can rule in favor of illegal squatters and thus frustrate what he offensively calls, using Arab parlance, the “Judaization” of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem does not need to be “Judaized.” It is part of Jewish history and was the capital of the Jews when Washington, D.C., was a marsh. It is the only city to have had a Jewish majority since the 1880s. Only Palestinians who deny every Jewish claim or right in the city speak of Israel “Judaizing” the city. Myers should think twice before parroting their malicious talking points.

Gary Ratner
National Executive Director
Zionist Organization of America
New York, N.Y.

Don’t Give Away the West Bank

I can no longer remain silent in the face of letters and opinion pieces by “sell out” Jews like Debra DeLee who advocate a “peace at all costs” approach to the issue with the Arabs (“Israel Must Halt Settlement Construction,” Letters, Aug. 14). DeLee’s philosophy will, in her best-case scenario, give away the West Bank, which is the religious/historical/cultural heartland of the Jewish People.

DeLee, and those who agree with her, would allow the Arabs, in the 21st century, to take one-third of our historical homeland, the land on which the prophets walked and taught (where Jesus taught as well) and give it to a non-people whose only claim to the land is that if we Jews don’t give it away they will continue to murder Jews. That position is a mirror disaster of the 20th century, in which we lost one-third of our people to another enemy, whom Jews and non-Jews like you attempted to appease. The so-called “Palestinians” are Arabs, no different from Syrians or Lebanese. They have no right to our land. They only have a made-up “nationhood,” and they have threats. Dig a hole anywhere on the West Bank and you will find only ancient Jewish artifacts; you will not find Palestinian artifacts because there is no Palestinian history or culture (nor language for that matter). Jordan is, was, and always will be “Palestine.” The Jewish nation, because of Jews like you, continues to ignore that fact.

If the “Palestinians” want a homeland, let them declare it in Jordan. You, Ms. DeLee, need to have pride in what God has given to the Jewish people. You need to connect yourself to your religion and your history. Neither you nor anyone in any generation has any right to give away one grain of sand of Israel. It is the height of arrogance to advocate otherwise. If the “Palestinians” want peace, let them lay down their arms and dismantle the bomb belts. The moment they do that, there will be peace.

Alan M. Goldberg, Esq.
Tarzana

Video Trivializes Issues in Gaza

I did not find the video humorous (“Boycott Israel? Then boycott the Arabs, too.”); I found it very offensive, and trivializing of the larger issues that rage on in Israel and Gaza. I stopped it half way through, it was THAT bad.  And I agree with Neve Gordon.

It’s not about how superior the Israelis are, it’s about trying to find a way to peace. This thing has been going on for so long, and deals with two cultures, both hell-bent on proving that each one, and only one, has the right to exist. It’s also about economics.

I grew up in the segregated south, and too much of this feels like all the arguments that white southerners used to justify segregation. I know, (gasp), comparing Israel to the White Citizens Councils of the “Jim Crow” south. Just dehumanize the people who aren’t like “us” and make it okay to use the “worst” of them as an excuse to treat ALL of them poorly.

Is it possible that in it’s fear of the Arab world, Israel has become a perpetrator of injustice? I’m not saying that it has, or has not, but we should consider the possibility, instead of making light of the suffering of Palestinian children because of this ongoing conflict. The fact that we can’t even have that dialogue without those who initiate it being ostracized and silenced is testament to the basic injustice that might be going on here.

It’s no accident that the movie “Lemon Tree” received so many awards from the Israeli critics and press. It chronicles how ordinary people get caught in the mess of all this, and have their lives ruined because no one is willing to look at how their own actions contribute to the problems.

When Rabin was killed and Sharon came into power, he did everything he could do to provoke the anger of the Palestinians; why is this not discussed in these forums?

No person or country is perfect. Can we please have some honest and critical commentary about what Israel is doing to provoke and prolong this war?

Sixty-one percent of the people in Gaza are under 21 years of age. This whole thing could be stopped if Israel “waged peace” with these children and their families. The capital and resources used to build what amounts to a modern “Berlin Wall” could be used to improve the lives of the Palestinians and educate the children.

When the United States and the allies flattened Japan and Germany, we did not turn our backs on them, but instead spent billions helping them rebuild into countries that are now our allies. Why can’t Israel do the same thing in Gaza?

All of this is very sad stuff, and not to be trivialized by a very tasteless YouTube video that ignores the suffering of innocent children whose lives have been ruined because they were caught in the middle of a war they were born into, and are not being left behind. The children in the Islamic world want to come into the 21st century. Will they be invited in, or will they be excluded and then have no other option except becoming terrorists? We all contribute to the answer of that question. Let’s have THAT discussion here.

Edward Garren
via e-mail

How Does Obama Really Talk to Israel?

How wise and wonderful for Stephen J. Savitsky to have waited a while with his comments about the meeting he participated in with the president in the White House (“Time to ‘Recalibrate’ on Middle East,” Aug. 21). He and his fellow Jewish participants asked Obama to demand from the Arabs [that they] do their share in advancing peace in the Middle East, while all we heard was Obama’s demand that Israel freeze the building in the settlements. Obama claimed to have done it already.

Well, we did see Abbas after his visit with the president. He was treated with love and care, almost like family. He came out on cloud nine and announced that he will not acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish state and that he will not stop demanding the right of return to the so-called refugees. Right there he buried all hope for peace conversation. But he also added that he has time. He is not under stress. Life in the West Bank is good, normal. He will wait until Obama will give him Israel on a silver platter.

The Fatah convention repeated Abbas, words with glee.  Obama never found this reprehensible and did not correct Abbas’ words. If anything, he put more pressure on Bibi, loudly, in front of the whole world, so that Bibi will be demeaned and insulted and weakened and will hopefully find himself giving in.

And where are we now? Bibi froze the building and the Arabs froze their willingness to do anything in order to start talking peace. I read in the Jerusalem Post that Abbas actually torpedoed the negotiations regarding the freeing of Gilad Shalit. This man wants us to remember that he was Arafat’s right hand and still is.

So, after all this waiting, what do we hear? I am not hearing Obama lashing out at the Arabs who do not do their share towards peace. He told the Jewish leaders in the White House that he does this in private conversations. Oh yeah? Screaming at Israel but whispering at the Arabs? He seems to think that he will force some kind of peace on the Middle East simply by stepping all over Israel. Is there someone out there who can explain to Obama that it really and truly takes two to tango?

Batya Dagan
Los Angeles

The Time to Stop Bias is Before College

“College Students Learn Ways to Counter Anti-Israel Bias” (Aug. 21) by Rebecca Steinberger, made me stop and think.

Recently my granddaughter, who is in 7th grade, came home quite upset. Her class was learning about the Middle East, and her homework included a question about how the Jews took away the Palestinians’ homes when the state of Israel was formed. The question as worded gives the message that the Jews moved in and took over the Palestinians’ land, taking advantage of the poor Palestinians. From that negative connotation, it is easy to take the next steps in many people’s minds to draw the conclusion that the Israelis — and the Jews — are responsible for the turmoil in the Middle East. Anti-Israel bias is a natural consequence. Concomitantly, anti-Semitism grows. No wonder.

I examined the textbook from which she was being taught. Nothing was misstated in its content — but it omitted almost all of the relevant information needed to provide an unbiased opinion.

When kids in middle and high schools are being taught this subject in this context, is it any wonder that anti-Israel bias — and anti-Semitism — is growing in our colleges and universities? I have to wonder why no Jewish or U.S. government organization is making sure that these kids are being taught the real facts behind the issues; why the kids aren’t being taught the truth rather than implied and biased myths.

Sure, do what is possible to “counter Anti-Israel bias” in our colleges; but, more important is to counter it while the kids are still in middle and high school. Counter such biases before they are formed rather than after the fact.

ADL: Are you listening? Here is where you could enlist lots of volunteers and gain monetary support. 

George Epstein
Los Angeles

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